Editor’s Note: Respecting our community

On Oct. 30, the News ran a letter authored by Deanna Havas, an artist with a controversial reputation for expressing “alt-right” sentiments on social media. Havas guest lectured at the School of Art earlier this month. We covered student protests against her appearance at Yale in the article “Guest speaker at School of Art draws controversy,” published on Oct. 16. Originally, we ran Havas’ letter to give her an opportunity to respond to that article, which did not have any statement from Havas. Given Sunday’s tragic events at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, we decided to take down this column several hours after publishing it online, given Havas’ reputation for making controversial public statements related to the Jewish faith that many readers in our community, especially during this time of mourning, consider offensive and hurtful. We apologize for any harm that we have caused to our community, readership and all others affected by our content decisions.